South African Minister of State Security Dipuo Letsatsi-Duba makes it clear that while the Jewish community is under no particular threat, the department of state security takes seriously its mandate to protect the country’s citizens.

Lawyers are preparing criminal and civil charges following one of the darkest weeks of anti-Semitism in South Africa. There have been a slew of vile incidents that sent shock waves through the community.

The SA Friends of the Beit Halochem Zahal Disabled Veterans Organisation was established in Johannesburg in 1982, its primary goal being to help and support Zahal disabled veterans by raising funds to help them return and resume their normal lives as soon as possible.

Dr Ali Bacher, former South African cricket captain and administrator, was one of the five recipients of the 2018 Steve Tshwete Lifetime Achievement Awards at the SA Sport Awards held in Bloemfontein on Sunday night.

Devotion to the cause of the State of Israel flourishes in the most unlikely places, even in societies where the Jewish presence is small to non-existent. Such is the case in Mozambique, where the work of Beth-El Associacao Crista Amigos De Israel - Mozambican Christian Friends of Israel - testifies to how much can be achieved by those inspired by their Christian faith to promote the Israeli cause, despite adverse conditions.

JNF’s unique “Blue Boy Box” now lives at King David Linksfield Pre-Primary so that children of each generation learn the importance of tzedakah (charity or welfare). It is the responsibility of Jews all over the world to build Israel, develop it and nurture it as the home of the Jewish nation

“Knowledge is Light” was our school motto when I was a child in Durban. The importance of education was made clear to us from as far back as I can remember. It wasn’t taken for granted. A good education was a privilege.

Late on Tuesday, a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas went into effect. While at the time of writing the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) had still not confirmed the existence of such a truce, Israeli citizens living in the south of the country were told they could return home and to “normalcy”.

The Israeli gymnastics team was out in full force at 48th FIG Artistic Gymnastics World Championships that began at Aspire Dome in Doha, Qatar, on Thursday. There are five males and two females in the team headed by new Israeli sensation Artem Dolgopyat. The others are Alexander Shatilov, Ilan Korchak, Andrey Medvedev, and Michael Sorokine, while the women are Ofir Netzer and Meitar Lavy.

As I was heading home on Tuesday, I heard on ChaiFM that 460 rockets had been fired from Gaza into Israel since late Sunday. That is an outrageous number. If every one of them hit inhabited areas, thousands of Israelis would have been killed.

“The president is not directly responsible for acts of domestic terrorism, but he should be more careful with his language.” That’s the way the Economist headlined its report on the horrific Pittsburgh killings just more than two weeks ago.

With Prince William’s historic visit to Israel this week, all eyes have been trained on the Jewish capital. It may have taken 70 years, but the first official visit by a member of the British Royal family began in Israel on Monday, when William, the Duke of Cambridge, arrived in Tel Aviv.

Some 5 600 emissaries (shluchim) from Chabad-Lubavitch from all over the world gathered at the Pier 8 warehouse in Brooklyn, New York this week for the opening of their four-day annual international conference and banquet, 75 years after the arrival of the Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson, from Europe.

“The greatness of our nation is that our people are great. We are a nation of heroes, of people with good and decent moral fibre who will not tolerate our country being plundered!” So said Chief Rabbi Warren Goldstein in Pretoria this morning.“This is a struggle for accountability and justice,” Goldstein told the crowd (which included prominent Jewish CEOs like Adrian Gore, Stephen Koseff and Michael Katz). “This struggle is about sovereignty. The power of the people always triumphs in the end.”

There is a generally held perception among South African Jewry that the current South African government is strongly critical of Israel and that many of its leadership see Israel as a tyrannical, or Nazi-like regime.

On Tuesday 14 July the South African Students Congress (Sasco) published a media release saying that it had “noted with great concern the attempts by the Zionist lobby to wage a counter offensive to our ongoing solidarity campaigns with the oppressed people of Palestine.”

The Board Fed take an uncharacteristic and harsh tone with Deputy Minister Obed Bapela after 15 influential young ANC supporters went to Israel and Palestine as guests of the SA Israel Forum last week. The joint statement takes “the strongest exception” to Bapela’s “uncalled for attack against students who, under the auspices of SAIF, took part in a recent visit to Israel.

A monument brouhaha has erupted in the wake of last week’s study tour by a group of highly influential young South Africans.The private information-gathering tour of future SA leaders to the Middle East, conducted by independently-funded SA Jewish group SAIF, saw the delegates travelling to Israel and Palestine last week. Pictured is ex-Wits-11 radical turned anti-BDS, Klaas Mokgomole. Read Wits Coasas branch chair, Nthabiseng Molefe (now suspended) who confirmed to JR Online in an exclusive interview that BDS offered her R40 000 not to go

Wendy Appelbaum was the driving force behind the application that resulted in the landmark Western Cape High Court ruling last week declaring emoluments attachments orders (also known as garnishee orders) obtained against low-income farm workers and others, unlawful.

As I write, the Durban and Umhlanga area is abuzz with holidaymakers. For the local Jewish community, it is always uplifting to be joined at these times by the many Jewish visitors from Gauteng and elsewhere and who add an extra vibe to its communal activities.

An official Jewish sporting event will be staged in Germany for the first time since the Second World War with the European Maccabi Games being staged in Berlin later this month. The opening ceremony will even be held in the same Olympic park as the 1936 Olympic Games, organised by Adolf Hitler and his Nazi party.

In what has become an annual pilgrimage for South African Jewish communal leaders, representatives from the SA Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD), the SA Zionist Federation (SAZF) and the Israel United Appeal - United Communal Fund, went to Israel to meet with Israeli government representatives from the foreign ministry and the ministry of strategic affairs last week.

It was not Pam Green of Glenhazel’s day, or actually her week. Someone drove into her car; then there were problems with her insurance and she had to drive to Sandton (although she works nearby) to have the damage assessed.

Amidst all the diplomatic noise currently going on about Iran’s nuclear programme, and attempts by world powers to stop it achieving nuclear weapons, it seems strange to remember that South Africa was once a nuclear-armed nation - a pariah state armed to the teeth, with military sanctions imposed on it from the international community.

Rabbi Moshe Silberhaft, CEO and spiritual leader of the African Jewish Congress, recently accompanied Israel’s Ambassador to South Africa Arthur Lenk to Lesotho, when the ambassador presented his credentials to King Letsie III.

We Jews are at war. This is not a war against anti-Semitism, nor is it the battle to defend Israel’s borders. It is not a war against terror or against media bias. This is not a new war; in fact, it is the longest-running war that the Jewish people have fought.

I can assure Dr Bryna Lewis (of PE) concerning a Sowetan report about DA Leader Mmusi Maimane's (critical) remarks about Israel at my book launch (last week Wednesday) that it was an appalling misreport.